Media server systems, such as conferencing systems, receive media streams from client devices on a communication, compile those media streams into at least one output media stream for the communication, and transfer the output stream back to the client devices. A server system may facilitate audio communications, video communications, or both, along with other accompanying media, such as textual media, graphical media, and the like—including combinations thereof. Each of these media elements consume not only network resources connecting the systems involved in a communication session but also processing resources at those systems.
During real-time communications between multiple parties, especially those having a large number of parties, the parties will take turns participating in the communication. Media for the communication that is being transferred from parties that are not currently contributing to the communication session is likely not pertinent to the communication session but may still be using communication resources.